Crescendo [Hush, Hush 2] by Becca Fitzpatrick

Author:Becca Fitzpatrick
Format: mobi
Tags: Legends, Fiction, Myths, Love & Romance, Supernatural, Angels, Fables, Fantasy, Secrecy, Social Issues, Young Adult Fiction, Secrets, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Fathers and daughters, Dating (Social Customs), Family, General, Paranormal Romance Stories, Parents, Religious, Good and Evil
ISBN: 9781416989431
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2010-10-18T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

13

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON VEE DROPPED ME OFF near the front door to Enzo’s. I was dressed in a yellow printed sundress that walked the line between flirty and professional and was far more optimistic than anything I felt on the inside. I stopped in front of the windows to shake out my hair, which had relaxed into waves after being slept on all night, but the gesture felt wooden. I forced a smile. It was the one I’d been practicing all morning. It felt tight at the edges and brittle everywhere in between. In the window, it looked false and hollow. But for a morning following a night spent crying, it was the best I could manage.

After walking home from Marcie’s last night, I’d curled into bed, but I hadn’t slept. I’d spent the night tormented by self-destructive thoughts. The longer I stayed awake, the more my thoughts took a dizzying departure from reality. I wanted to make a statement, and I was hurting enough not to care how drastic it was. A thought came to me, the kind of thought I never would have entertained in my life before. If I ended my life, the archangels would see it. I wanted them to feel remorse. I wanted them to doubt their archaic laws. I wanted them to be held accountable for ripping my life apart, then ripping it away completely.

My mind swirled and tottered with these kinds of thoughts all night. My emotions shifted through heartbreaking loss, denial, anger. At one point, I regretted not running away with Patch. Any happiness, no matter how brief, seemed better than the long, simmering torture of waking up day after day, knowing I could never have him.

But as the sun began to crack across the sky this morning, I came to a decision. I had to move on. It was either that, or slip into a frozen depression. I forced myself through the motions of showering and dressing, and went to school with fixed determination that no one would see below skin-deep. A pins-and-needles sensation enveloped my body, but I refused to display a single outward sign of self-pity. I wasn’t going to let the archangels win. I was going to pull myself back on my feet, get a job, pay off my speeding ticket, finish summer school with the top grade, and keep myself so occupied that only at night, when I was alone with my thoughts and it couldn’t be helped, would I think of Patch.

Inside Enzo’s, two semicircular balconies spread out to my left and right, with a set of wide stairs leading down into the main eating area and front counter. The balconies reminded me of curved catwalks overlooking a pit. The tables on the balcony were filled, but only a few stragglers drinking coffee and reading the morning paper remained in the pit.

With the help of a deep breath, I took the stairs down and approached the front counter.

“Excuse me, I heard you’re hiring baristas,” I told the woman at the register.

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